Ego stroking.

Damascus, Syria

Thursday, day 3 in Aleppo and I was riding high after the events of the previous two days. I slept in rather late that day and tried to find some breakfast at a restaurant called "Abou Nawas", which the hostel recommended to me. Sure enough they had a sign out front that read "breakfast", but I guess that didn't apply at 11.30am. I asked to see a menu but was instead just taken back to the kitchen, where the top of each pot was lifted to show me the contents. Apparently, you either know what this place serves or whatever you order is common enough that they will have it in on of their pots. I ended up with french fries and lentil soup, not the normal breakfast I would have back home, but it got me going. I had intentions of also getting a plate of rice and chicken to go with the soup, but something told me I should just get a basic snack and look elsewhere for more food.

The plan was to head over and explore the Aleppo Citadel, which along with the souq is pretty much the only other specific tourist attraction to see in Aleppo. Using my "made in Istanbul" International Student card dropped the price down from 150 SP to about 10. Simply put, student cards in Syria (and apparently in Egypt) are gold and work like a charm.

Aleppo Citadel

The Citadel, situated high up on a man-made hill surrounded by a moat offers great panoramic views of Aleppo, which is good because the Citadel itself is rather rundown and undergoing some serious restoration. I wandered up to one of the lookout points along the upper wall where for the next hour, yes HOUR, I experienced what it must be like to be in a boy band.

Three girls, all around 18, part of a music university group who took a particular interest in me. What started with the classic "Hello", "Where are you from?", "Can I speak English with you?" quickly turned into lots of girl-giggling, tons of "I love you", "I love you so much", "I love you forever", "Why are you not married?", "Will you marry me?", "Which one of us is the cutest?", "Am I beautiful?", "Am I more beautiful then her?", etc... I shit you not this went on for an hour, and my ego grew exponentially as the time went on. Everything I tried to get up they would grab my arm and sit me back down on the rock with them. There was no escaping this trio and after awhile a few more of their friends joined in and by the end there was about six of them, all wondering which one I would marry and which one was the most beautiful. (Guys... Never, ever, answer that question!)

I wasn't quite sure if I was breaking some Islamic law or anything by talking to them, and they seemed to always look over their should every once in awhile, but for the most part they were very excited to feel/pull my hair and ask me to marry one of them. After about an hour of this, they sort of realized that I wasn't about to marry any of them and that I thought they were all equally beautiful and wasn't about to rank them.

Two of the girls that form my five girl fan club.

After getting some love notes written in my notebook and a few gifts from the girls which included some fruity hand cream and a pink pen, I wished them well in school and my boy band experience came to end. Needless to say, I was riding high the rest of the week and could only imagine what a real boy band member must actually go through. I spent the next hour or so in relative peace as I explored the Citadel and took pictures of the area. So thanks to Nour, Diala, Lamis, Heba and Amani for inflating my ego so much.

Outside the Citadel, I sat down on a bench to rest for a few minutes and figure out my next destination. It took no more then a few minutes before I was approached by a guy in his early twenties and heard the familiar "Hello". "Hello", I responded back, which was greeted with the now familiar "Can I speak English with you?". Uh, sure, how can I help you my friend... For the next 2 hours, yes 2 hours, I spoke English with Abdul Allah Hmmadeh, who actually spoke quite well and was very excited every time I told him that. (And I did mean it.) Turns out he's in university and one of his homework assignments for English class is to speak English with someone. Well, I was that someone on Thursday.

He showed me his homework, which involved a lot of Syrian to English translation work. From what I could tell, he was trying to translate some UN doctrine, which I thought was a rather odd choice of things to understand in a second language.

The homework.

The student.

After about 90 minutes of just talking about everything, he started to tell me about his name, Abdul Allah Hmmadeh. For some reason, he insisted that I take notes and proceeded to tell me first about "Abdul", which apparently means "Somebody is honored by someone", then about "Allah" and finally about "Hmmadeh". I was fine until we got to the "Allah" part, which quickly became a lesson in Islam and how great Allah is, etc... 30 minutes of that and I had to bid Adbul farewell and wish him all the best in his English class. We exchanged notes in each others notebook and I got my name written in Arabic, which was kind of cool.

As I wandered back towards the hostel, I passed a flat break making factory and just stood and watched as the flat bread (pita bread) would get throw out the small window in stacks of ten at waiting customers. In turn, the customers would then lay out the bread on the sidewalk to cool down, before wrapping it up in a plastic bag to take home. The production was all very impressive and from what I could tell the conveyor belt of flat bread probably ran 24/7.

Hot flat bread rolling off conveyor belt.

Like most food stalls in Aleppo, just standing in front of one and looking at the food with a look of curiosity all but guarantee's that you'll get a free sample, and the bread plant proved no difference. From behind the window a kid, seemingly oblivious to hot bread, handed me a full piece of pita which was probably in the neighborhood of 100 degrees, having just come out of the oven. Dancing the piece of bread between my two hands all while smiling and saying thank you to the baker proved a challenging task. That said, fresh bread, even pita bread, is damn good and I enjoyed it as I headed back to the hostel to make dinner plans.

At the hostel I met up with Michelle from New Bruswick, who was traveling with her best friend, Bramwen from BC and her husband, Inigo, from Spain. Bramwen and Inigo both work for an international aid organization that currently has them living and working in Armenia with the local farmers. The intent is to establish some sort of structured trading and quality control guidelines for the local farmers so that they can begin doing trade with neighboring countries, instead of just domestically. Needless to say the dinner conversation, which was back at "Abou Nawas", the restaurant I had tried for breakfast, was particularly interesting.

With a tour planned for the following day, Michelle and I headed over to the fruit market after dinner to stock up on some snacks. For some reason, I was feeling particularly friendly with the stall vendors and they in term were offering both Michelle and I free samples of just about everything. Not wanting to offend them, I graciously accepted the fruit samplers, including a half-drunk cup of Nescafee coffee (don't ask). Well, it doesn't take a seasoned traveler to figure out where this story is going... But for now, Michelle and I headed back to the hostel to get some sleep for our 9am tour of the Dead Cities the following day...

Kenny